


Sketches

by achray



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achray/pseuds/achray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is for the Sherlock minibang 2013. The story goes with art by the lovely Sarah Ann, who can be found at http://10sarahann29.tumblr.com<br/>I came up with the idea in response to her sketches and she very patiently waited while I failed to finish writing it. </p>
<p>I'm posting this now as Sarah has posted to the challenge tumblr, but it is late and I'm incompetent, and I can't get the images to fit with the text. So please read here, in the full version,  instead for now, until I can sort it out:<br/>http://www.scribd.com/doc/193874036/Sketches</p>
<p>No spoilers for season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketches

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Szkice- TŁUMACZENIE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1913325) by [Toootie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toootie/pseuds/Toootie)



John wandered into the living-room on automatic pilot, clutching his morning tea  and plate of toast and running through the appointments he already had for the day at the surgery. He’d been going to read the papers online while he had his breakfast, see if anything was going on in the world, he’d about twenty minutes before he had to head out. His laptop was – he stopped short.

Last night his laptop had been on the table, along with last weekend’s Sunday papers in a pile, some bills and other post, and an empty glass he knew he hadn’t tidied up from the night before. Now the table was cleared, his laptop and the papers stacked together at one end, and nearest to him, what looked like a couple of pieces of scrap paper surrounded by empty space. John frowned at it. Post from Mrs Hudson? But she didn’t generally tidy his stuff, and she always knocked. And it was only 7am, she’d only just be getting up. Mycroft? He hadn’t set eyes on him for nearly a year. And the chances that any of Sherlock’s former enemies were still around and interested in messing with John seemed pretty slim, nearly two years after Sherlock’s death. Nothing interesting happened in 221B any more. Things stayed where John put them.

 He went over to the table, set down his tea and picked up the first piece of paper. It seemed like a page torn out of a notebook, unlined, drawn on in pencil. He stared at it. It was a rough sketch, unfinished, but even so he could tell it was meant for a picture of him, raising a cup of tea to his mouth **.** One of the cups and saucers that had been in the flat when he moved in, at the back of a cupboard, blue and white stripes. He’d never got around to asking Sherlock if they were his, and he only used them when he hadn’t bothered to wash up the two mugs he owned himself. He blinked at the picture, half expecting it to disappear. Who would have come and left a drawing of him, in his flat? That was  - creepy behaviour. Stalkerish. The skin on his neck crawled and he glanced around, thinking of cameras and surveillance and the time when the living-room had been a space that people wanted to watch. Then he set the picture down and picked up the next one, which seemed to be on the same or similar paper. It was him again, or someone who looked like him, with clasped hands, smiling. He turned it over, and then he jerked away from it, feeling the familiar pain, like a blow to the chest, before he even registered the reason; the handwriting, Sherlock’s hand, a scrawl he would know anywhere.

He rubbed at his head and breathed deeply. OK. An old picture of him, God knows who’d done it – one of his exes, maybe? – and they’d left it around, and Sherlock had scribbled down case notes or whatever on the back: he’d used to do that, writing on bits and scraps of paper, on the margins of the broadsheets and the endpapers of books, on post-it notes and used envelopes and utility bills. His writing lay in ambush everywhere in the flat, for weeks. This was a bit of paper that had been missed, probably Mrs H _had_ found it and maybe thought John would like to see it.

He picked it up gingerly. It shouldn’t have the power to hurt so much, after all this time. But he still closed his eyes for a moment before he could read it.

_John –_

_This was in a café in Vienna. You would like it, I imagine. My mark liked it too: I had two hours there, waiting for him to leave, and no laptop or phone, for obvious reasons. I pretended I was sketching the scene outside the café window. But I was thinking about how you would sometimes look at me, when you thought I couldn’t see you. Fond is a term I’ve always hated. When he left I brought this with me - habit and caution, I told myself, but then I never destroyed it – so, sentiment. I am sorry.  SH_

John read it twice. Then he sat down, took a couple of mouthfuls of cooling tea, and read it again. When on earth had Sherlock written this? Vienna? John couldn’t remember any talk about Vienna, though that didn’t mean Sherlock _hadn’t_ been there. He definitely couldn’t remember any talk about sentiment. This text sounded – like and unlike Sherlock. There was something off about it, something peculiar. Past tense, _thought_. And did that mean _Sherlock_ had…? He turned over the picture and looked at it. He’d once seen Sherlock try to sketch a suspect for Greg, and then throw a pencil across the room in frustration. That was about it.

He picked up the picture of him with the teacup and this time, turned it over, bracing himself. There was another note on the back of it:

_John –_

_I saw you like this so many times. I could not reproduce any of them. None of the photos online were right. This was in my pocket when I stood on a ferry to Sicily. I no longer remember how long it had been there. SH_

There was still one more bit of paper on the table. John lifted it **.** His hand was shaking a little, he noticed. It was a picture of him in bed, asleep. There was Sherlock’s handwriting again, still a fresh shock:

_John –_

_I wasn’t going to keep this one, either. I threw it in the wastepaper basket as I left a hotel room in San Francisco_ _and then I thought someone might – it seemed they might recognize you. Foolishness. I spent the evening listening for sounds in room 534. I was thinking about Baker St. I was thinking about coming back, about climbing the stairs. About looking at you, sleeping. And then. I left in a hurry after washing off the blood. I took this with me: a memento. I was sorry then too. SH_

John turned the picture back over. The man sleeping in the bed was clutching something – a scarf? _Sherlock_ ’s scarf? He’d never – well, maybe once or twice, just after Sherlock was gone, but who would know that? Hewas still staring at the picture, trying to process what the hell this meant, when someone knocked on the door.

“John? Can I have a word, dear?”

John shook off frustration. A minute, and then he could get back to –. He went over and opened the door, composing his face to politeness. Mrs Hudson was still wearing her dressing-gown and nightie, and she looked flustered.

“Oh, John, there you are. I just wondered – well, something’s given me a bit of a funny turn, I wondered if you might know how it got onto my kitchen table.”

She held up a hand and John saw that she was clutching a sheet of paper.

“It’s a  - well, I think it’s supposed to be me, though really I’m not sure the _nose_ is right, do you think? But I looked at the back and – oh, John, did you leave this for me? It’s just that it’s brought it all back, after two years – “

John swallowed. “I – “ he said. “Can I see?” He took it from her gently, steering her towards his armchair. Then he allowed himself to glance at the picture and turn it over, pulse quickening.

“ _I missed you too. I didn’t thank you enough. If I can, one day I’ll take you to the place I write this. SH”_

Mrs Hudson was watching him, clasping her hands, hope on her face.

“I don’t know,” said John slowly, passing it back. He made up his mind. “I found some – drawings too. I thought maybe you’d put them there, but if you didn’t – ”

Mrs Hudson’s mouth shaped into an O, but before she could speak John’s phone rang, almost making him jump. His first thought was that it was the practice: his eyes went to the clock, but only ten minutes had passed, even though it felt like more. The number displayed was an unfamiliar London landline. He answered.

“John?”

It took John a second or two to recognize Greg’s voice.

“Greg, hi,” he said. He had a sense that he knew what Greg was going to say.

“Sorry to disturb you when you’re probably on your way out the door. Umm – look, I found something a bit weird this morning in my flat, I know this sounds mental but I had to check you didn’t leave it there…”

“No,” said John. “Look, was it a sketch? Of, I don’t know, you? With some…writing on the back?”

“It’s Sherlock’s handwriting,” said Greg. “That’s why I thought you must have – shit, what the fuck _is_ going on, then?”

“What does it say?” said John, curious, then, thinking about the words on his – surely his – sketches – he added, “I mean, if you don’t mind telling us – Mrs Hudson’s here, she got one too.”

“Hang on,” said Greg. “Got it here – right, ‘ _In Belarus. Wished you were there. Thank you for having my back. I do know it wasn’t your fault – SH’_. I mean, what the fuck, John?”

John breathed in, then out. In the months since Sherlock’s death he’d learned to shut off, brutally, some parts of himself. Now he felt doors cracking open. 

“I have to go to work,” he said. “Are you free later? Maybe we should all three meet up, compare notes.” He winced. “Sorry, terrible pun, wasn’t on purpose. I’ve no idea what’s going on, but something is.”

“I could make a nice roast for tea,” said Mrs Hudson in a stage whisper.

“Mrs H says she’ll do one of her roasts. Come round here, we’ll talk about it.”

Greg hmm’d. “Hang on, checking my – yeah, that should be fine if nothing else comes up today. I could be free from 6, 6:30.”

“Good,” said John. “See you later. Bring the sketch.” He hung up.

“I’ve really got to get to work,” he said. Once when he’d been young he’d read a book his Mum had given to Harry, about a little girl who was made to live in the attic and be a servant, and someone sneaked over the roof and left presents for her when she was asleep, so that when she woke up she thought it was magic: he felt like that now, both wanting to leave to make something else happen, and not wanting to miss it happening.

“I’ll light the fire for when you’re back, get some food ready,” said Mrs Hudson. He got her meaning – she’d be in and out of the flat all day – and nodded.

“I’ll ring in my lunch hour. To check – just in case,” he said. He was reluctant to leave the sketches on the table, so after a moment of dithering, he slid them into his briefcase between the pages of a crime novel he’d been carrying around on the tube for months and hardly ever opened. Mrs Hudson watched him without commenting.

“See you later on, and thanks – I’ll pay you back for any food you get.”

She waved him off with one hand, the other loosely holding her sketch, as John headed down the stairs, remembering only at the bottom that he’d forgotten to eat breakfast and would be doing a five hour shift on an empty stomach.

**

The sketch Greg had was like the others. There was no indication of time or place in the background, and the paper seemed to be a page torn out of a notebook. When they put the pages together, one or two could have been from the same notebook, but one of John’s and Mrs Hudson’s were different. John had fought his initial reluctance to let anyone else read the notes – _his_ notes – but in the end he’d handed them over. Greg hadn’t commented, passing them back with a line creased in his forehead.

They talked through the options over their roast chicken, a more civilized meal than John had had in weeks. They even wrote up lists of possibilities on John’s computer. But the discussion spiralled round and round. Either Sherlock had drawn and written these at some point before his death, and a person or persons unknown had found them and decided to distribute them, for unfathomable reasons; or someone was faking Sherlock’s handwriting; or Sherlock - . Or Sherlock had written these after his death. Which was impossible. Impossible, each of them said, looking at the others for confirmation, pouring more wine. John thought they were waiting for him to say it, to broach what they were all thinking: could it have been done, how could it have been done, why? But he couldn’t, he couldn’t do it.

In the end, at ten, Mrs Hudson had finished washing up and drying, waving off offers of help, and Greg sighed, rubbed a hand over his face and said apologetically that he had an early start and a case file to review. John showed them out. Greg had left his sketch, whether by accident or design, he wasn’t sure. Mrs Hudson had taken hers. John leafed through them again, tracing the letters. Sentiment. I’m sorry. I was thinking of coming back. He glanced towards the door, as though expecting to hear a footstep on the stairs. Then he shook it off: he couldn’t afford to be maudlin. He had a job, he had a life. He couldn’t think about this any longer, teetering towards and away from the dangerous what-if speculation. He would go to bed, like any ordinary night, and perhaps in the morning all would have become clear, or something more, anything more, would have happened.

He washed in a perfunctory way and then climbed the stairs. His leg twinged, as it did now and then, an unwelcome reminder. He pushed his bedroom door open and then froze. There was a piece of paper on the bed. He shook his head to clear it – imagining things, too much wine – but when he looked again, it was still there. It had not been there that morning. Nor, he was pretty sure, had he made the bed before heading downstairs. And he hadn’t been up again that day. The back of his neck prickled. He wet his lips, fighting the urge to look behind him, or to close the door gently, go back downstairs, and walk away from whatever this was. Then he took two steps into the room, carefully not looking anywhere but at the bed, and picked up the sketch.

Like the others, it was rough, hasty. It was two men, kissing. One of them was obviously meant for Sherlock. The other was him. A feeling like panic, terror, ran through him, terrifying and exhilarating, and the hairs on his arms lifted. He turned the paper over. The other side was blank.

There was a noise behind him, a noise like a soft breath, a shuffle of clothing. John bowed his head over the paper. If he turned round, the spell would be broken, if he turned round, there would be nothing there, only empty air, the paper blown into his room on a chance gust of wind, the bed made in a fit of absent-mindedness….

He heard the sound of someone clearing their throat.

 


End file.
